Carbon: 1/25 of 347

Mukti Mitchell, period home insulation expert, who last week won the 2016 ‘Devon Environmental Champion' award for his work insulating the heritage village of Clovelly, says now is the time to make your old home cosy for wintermore...

This week in the Rwandan capital, Kigali, nations are meeting to hammer out a plan to phase out Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) which are guilty of accelerating climate change. At the heart of the talks will be the date at which the world will end their use. JOE WARE reportsmore...

Mainstream solutions to climate change are all based on reducing the world down to a single metric - tonnes of carbon. But as Camila Moreno, Daniel Speich Chassé & Lili Fuhr explain, this uni-dimensional world view is doomed to failure as it neglects all the difficult things that matter most: people, communities, ecosystems, love, beauty, politics, money, corruption, and corporate power.more...

For years the 'market mantra' has been to save forests by selling the carbon they embody, writes Chris Lang, harnessing the profit motive for the benefit of trees and climate. But it never worked, and now even former fans are admitting that REDD is just another failed conservation fad. So what next? How about asking local communities to manage their forests as commons?more...

The over-hunting of wildlife in the Amazon has an unexpected knock-on effect: the reduced seed dispersal reduces the forest's capacity to store carbon in its biomass, increasing emissions from apparently 'intact' rainforest areas.more...

Hidden away in the pages of UN-speak that make up the Paris Agreement are the makings of global carbon market in which a host of exotic emissions derivatives can be freely traded, writes Steffen Böhm. And it's all going to be a huge and expensive distraction from the real and urgent task of cutting emissions.more...

It sounds like a modest ambition: France wants to raise the amount of carbon in its soils by 0.4% a year, writes John Quinton. But that represents a vast amount of carbon, and its capture into soils will bring a host of other benefits. We should all get with the program!more...

Carbon trading has a remarkable record of failure: rewarding polluters while causing no discernible reduction in global emissions. If the COP21 UN climate negotiations in Paris are to achieve anything of value, first they must ditch the false solution of carbon markets. And thanks to Pope Francis, the idea is firmly on the agenda.more...

Climatologists have spotted an 'easy hit' to reduce global warming by cutting emissions of short lived forcing agents like soot from dirty power plants, 2-stroke engines and cooking fires, writes Miles Allen. But while we should take action on these pollutants, it must not come at the expense of holding back on cutting emissions of the big long term climate forcer: carbon dioxide.more...

Germany's 'Energiewende' has made the country a global renewable energy powerhouse. So why have its carbon emissions gone up? Not because of nuclear closures, writes Melanie Mattauch, but because powerful fossil fuel companies have blocked effective climate action. Now the fight is on as public calls to keep the coal in the ground get too loud to ignore.more...

We are alive in a pivotal year, writes the Earth League. 2015 offers the opportunity to build a sustainable and prosperous future for people and planet. But if we fail to act on climate change, safeguard crucial ecosystems and biodiversity, and secure a just and equitable world order for all, grave and irreversible perils await Earth and all who dwell on her.more...

To date the Amazon has been a huge carbon sink, soaking up billions of tonnes of our emissions from fossil fuels, write Oliver Phillips & Roel Brienen. But now that's changing, as trees grow faster and die younger: the sink appears to be saturating.more...

Carbon: 1/25 of 347

Univerisities' core mission is one of civilization and enlightenment, and that's incompatible with investing in fossil fuels that pose an existential threat to humanity and the planet, writes Cutler J Cleveland. It's is also financially prudent for for them to avoid sinking capital into future 'stranded assets' of unburnable carbon.more...

Indian coal firm Adani is struggling to finance its proposed mega coal mine in Australia's Galilee Basin, write Marina Lou & Christine Ottery, as promised government support evaporates and a major investor looks set to pull out.more...

The carbon market has certainly seen its fair share of skullduggery, writes Chris Lang, with massive frauds perpetrated on an unsuspecting public. This new thriller captures the essence of the wheeler-dealer carbon business to produce a compulsive work of fiction that is, sadly, all too believable.more...

After rabbits, foxes, brambles and the cane toad, you would have thought Australia would have had enough of invasive exotic species, writes Jane Wright. Wrong! CSIRO scientists are introducing a French dung beetle, in the hope it will lead to fewer flies, improved soil fertility and structure, and greater carbon sequestration.more...

The plight of Kenya's Sengwer people shows that carbon offsets generated by 'sustainable' forest management are empowering a corporate recolonisation of the South backed by the World Bank against its own guidelines, writes Nafeez Ahmed. Indigenous forest peoples are at risk of genocide while corporations let rip.more...

Climate negotiators in Bonn are hammering out the basis of a new global agreement - but have they got it all wrong? Taxing carbon consumption, rather than trying to regulate emissions, could stimulate the low carbon revolution the world needs.more...

Fish from the high seas are too valuable to be eaten, as they lessen climate change through the carbon they carry down to the ocean depths. The carbon benefits are worth $150 billion every year - almost ten times the value of high seas fish landings.more...

The Government has gutted its 'zero carbon home' standard - builders will be able to 'zero the carbon' through an offsetting scheme - rather than by installing more insulation, or renewable technologies like solar PV or solar water heating.more...

Large, older trees have been found to grow faster and absorb carbon dioxide more rapidly than younger, smaller trees, writes Adeshola Ore - contrary to the previous view that trees’ growth slowed as they developed.more...

The Warsaw 'COP-19' climate negotiations were a widely acknowledged failure. But Assaad Razzouk sees a small silver lining among the dark clouds. There is a real prospect of effective action on climate in the run up to COP20 in Paris, 2015.more...

When looking at the numbers of cars cruising Britain's roads, the amount of carbon being constantly released is staggering. Paul Creeney looks at how public transport is evolving to become a viable alternative....more...